, 1887-08-20

Us. Sewell was placed in one lodge and
/ in another, and the var party were
o engaged with breakfast. 1t was not
yet fully daylight when I was pulled oil
the he, G, and therefore l had not yet
been recognized. 1 was pretty generally
known to all the tribes, and they had
named me The Long Death" / got
the name by killing some of them with a
rifle, which knocked them over when
they supposed themselves far beyond
range. My only hope was that no one in
the crowd would be able to identify me,
as had lately had my hair cut close and
my whiskers entirely removed, but day
Light had only come when three warriors
looked in on me, ave a start of surprise,
and n of them called at the top of his
voice:
1T is the Long Deathl We nave got
him at last. Here is the white hunter
who has killed so many of our people"
The cat was out of the bag, as the old
saying goes, and L stood there and faced
them and Knew that 1 was doomed 10
the most horrible tortures they could in
vent.
They did not keep me long in waiting.
The knowledge of my identity whetted
their savage appetites, and while the
warriors who captured us were eating
breakfast the rest of the village was astir
with preparations. The camp was in a
bit of valley on the left bank of Smoky
Jill Fork, and two young trees were cut
down, trimmed to a proper length, and
then driven into the ground in the center
of the village. The one intended for me
was almost in front of my tepee, and
and l stood at the entrance and saw the
the young man drive it into the earth.
More than that, l sung out to them in a
steady voice, in their own dialect:
"a stake like that to hold the Long
Deathl You shall see how he will tear it
upl'
My words were received with shout of
satisfaction. No people on earth respect
courage III a man as much as the Indians.
They are no less cruel to a game man,
but his gameness will shorten his torture.
Feeling that my time had come, and
hoping to provoke some of them to shoot
or tomahawk me, l called ont the names
of half a dozen of the tribe whom 1 had
sent to the happy hunting grounds. Some
of the young men fairly raved to get at
mt, but the order of the chief was to wait.
l boosted that l could outshoot, outride
and outrun their best men, and offered
to fight any six of them, if they would
NNAA ANC W. DuO III NiAo b1bh SliI 6bNC
them the more satisfaction in thinking of
the torture in store for me. On the same
principle that people eat their pie last,
the Indians led Sewell out first. His con-
dition was such that but little fun could
be anticipated from his torture. He was
a large, fine looking man, but the result
of his spree and of his capture was to
break him down. He had no more courage
than Il child, and it was pitiful to see him
weap and hear his lamentations. l beg
ged of the Indians to let him go, stating
that he was a civilian who had never in
jured them, and was so broken down
that he could not live long, and but for
the hotheaded young men in the tribe l
should have got him off. They urged
that he was assisting to build the railroad
which was driving the game and the
Indian out of the country, and that the
white men never spared a warrior because
he was i'll. Such talk as this settled it,
and the engineer was led out, stripped of
his clothing, and tied securely to the stake.
Had 1 refused to look on it would have
been taken as an act of cowardice on my
part. Realizing this, 1 stepped outside
the lodge and stood within ten feet of the
stake. Sewell wept and begged while
being made fast, but when they stepped
pack he suddenly grew calm and asked
of me:
Taylor, what does this all mean? What
are they going to do with me?'
They are going to torture you, Mr..
Sewell."
Are you a prisoner, too?"
Eyes, and they will torture me after
finishing you
MY God! but this is awful. l have
$500 at the camp. Won't they take that
and release us?'
Ireplied that if we were worth q million
dollars apiece we could not purchase our
liberty under the circumstances, and adj
vised him to call up all his courage and
seek to die like q man. Any sign of
weakness on his part would excite con-
tempt and increased torture, and the
better way was to defy them to do their
worst. l believe he tried his best to brace
up, but his nerves were dreadfully shat
tered, and after three or four minutes he
began crying again. This had just the
effect l predicted. Half q hundred boys
were sent off to cut switches, and when
they returned they were told to go ahead
and apply them to the engineer. The
idea was to whip some courage into him,
but it was a fiat failure. Almost at the
first blow the man cried out like a
woman, and, his feet not having yet been
tied, he danced about like a puppet. 1
called out to him to kick his ~tormentors,
but he paid no heed to my voice, and
after a time stood stock still and let the
boys whip him until blood was drawn in
a score of places. All this time he cried
like a boy four or five years old, and l
heard some of the old warriors say that
he was the most cowardly white man
they had ever met. He may have lacked
courage, but 1 always believed his con-
duct to have beer the result of his shat
tered mental and physical condition.
After the boys had switched him for
ten minutes they were called off, and a
couple of warriors advanced with their
muzzle loading rifles and began to fire
charges of powder into the poor fellows
flesh. Does it hurt2 Well, sir, hell can't
be any worse. I've had q dozen charges
fired into me and 1 never felt any pain
to equal it. III take two bullets in pref
erence to one charge of powder every
time. The first charge set him to dane
ing and screaming, and at the third Or
fourth. he kicked one of the warriors
over and became SO savape that they had